# American Dialect Society

The American Dialect Society (ADS), founded in 1889, is a learned society "dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it." The Society publishes the academic journal American Speech.
Since its foundation, dialectologists in English-speaking North America have affiliated themselves with the American Dialect Society, an association which in its first constitution defined its objective as "the investigation of the spoken English of the United States and Canada" (Constitution, 1890). Over the years, its objective has remained essentially the same, only expanded to encompass "the English language in North America, together with other languages or dialects of other languages influencing it or influenced by it" (Fundamentals, 1991).

## History

The organization was founded as part of an effort to create a comprehensive American dialect dictionary, a near century-long undertaking that culminated in the publication of the Dictionary of American Regional English. In 1889, when Joseph Wright began editing the English Dialect Dictionary, a group of American philologists founded the American Dialect Society with the ultimate purpose of producing a similar work for the United States.
Members of the Society began to collect material, much of which was published in the Society's journal Dialect Notes, but little was done toward compiling a dictionary recording nationwide usage until Frederic G. Cassidy was appointed Chief Editor in 1963. The first volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, covering the letters A-C, was published in 1985. The other major project of the Society is the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada.

## Membership

The Society has never had more than a few hundred active members. With so few scholars advancing the enterprise, the developments in the field came slowly. Members of the organization include "linguists, lexicographers, etymologists, grammarians, historians, researchers, writers, authors, editors, professors, university students, and independent scholars." Its activities include a mailing list, which deals chiefly with American English but also carries some discussion of other issues of linguistic interest.

## Word of the Year

Since 1991, the American Dialect Society has designated one or more words or terms to be the word of the year. The New York Times stated that the American Dialect Society "probably started" the "word-of-the-year ritual". However, the "Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache" (GfdS) has announced a word of the year since 1977.
Special votes that they've made:
* Word of the 1990s: web
* Word of the 20th Century: jazz
* Word of the Past Millennium: she
* Word of the Decade (2000–2009): Google (verb)
* Word of the Decade (2010–2019): they (singular)
The society also selects words in other categories that vary from year to year, such as "most original", "most unnecessary", "most outrageous", or "most likely to succeed" (see: Word of the year).
A number of words chosen by the ADS are also on the lists of Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year.

### List of Words of the Year

| Year | Word | Notes |
| 1990 | bushlips | (similar to "bullshit" – stemming from President George H. W. Bush's 1988 "Read my lips: no new taxes" promise) |
| 1991 | mother of all – | (as in Saddam Hussein's foretold "Mother of all battles") |
| 1992 | Not! | (meaning "just kidding") |
| 1993 | information superhighway | |
| 1994 | Tie: cyber and morph | (to change form) |
| 1995 | Tie: World Wide Web and newt | (as a verb: to make aggressive changes as a newcomer). |
| 1996 | mom | (as in "soccer mom"). |
| 1997 | millennium bug | |
| 1998 | e- | (as in "e-mail"). |
| 1999 | Y2K | |
| 2000 | chad | (from the 2000 Presidential Election controversy in Florida). |
| 2001 | 9-11, 9/11 or September 11 | |
| 2002 | weapons of mass destruction or WMD | |
| 2003 | metrosexual | |
| 2004 | red/blue/purple states | (from the 2004 presidential election). |
| 2005 | truthiness | popularized on The Colbert Report. |
| 2006 | to be plutoed, to pluto | (demoted or devalued, as happened to the former planet Pluto). |
| 2007 | subprime | (an adjective used to describe a risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment). |
| 2008 | bailout | (a rescue by government of a failing corporation) |
| 2009 | tweet | (a short message sent via the Twitter service) |
| 2010 | app | |
| 2011 | occupy | (in reference to the Occupy movement) |
| 2012 | #hashtag | |
| 2013 | because | (introducing a noun, adjective, or other part of speech: "because reasons," "because awesome") |
| 2014 | #blacklivesmatter | |
| 2015 | they | ("gender-neutral singular pronoun for a known person, particularly as a nonbinary identifier") |
| 2016 | dumpster fire | an exceedingly disastrous or chaotic situation |
| 2017 | fake news | defined by the ADS in two ways: "disinformation or falsehoods presented as real news" and "actual news that is claimed to be untrue" |
| 2018 | tender-age shelter | ("government-run detention centers that have housed the children of asylum seekers at the U.S./Mexico border") |
| 2019 | (my) pronouns | "Recognized for its use as an introduction for sharing one's set of personal pronouns (as in 'pronouns: she/her')." |
| 2020 | Covid | |
| 2021 | Insurrection | referring to the January 6 United States Capitol attack. |
| 2022 | -ussy | (suffix from pussy) |
| 2023 | enshittification | |
| 2024 | rawdog | "Defined as 'to undertake without usual protection, preparation, or comfort,'" a generalization of the earlier meaning, 'to have sex without a condom'. |